The increasing prevalence of small body pickup or utility trucks, which are typically manufactured without headrests or other support means for the heads of the driver and passengers, has created a need for an after-market headrest that can be easily installed by the truck owner.
A problem with designing headrests that are installable by truck users has been the difficulty of providing means for securely attaching the headrest in a manner that will allow the weight of the head to firmly contact the headrest without the headrest changing position or detaching itself over time.
The prevalent method of attaching headrests in the prior art has been to affix the headrest to the seat of the truck. One such device is described in a patent to W. F. Warlick et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,983,310. The Warlick device attaches to the top of the seat back by means of a spring clamp. This solution suffers from such problems as unsightly permanent deformations of the seat by the clamp, a tendency to slide to one side under the weight of the head, and protrusion of the headrest outwardly from the designed contour of the seat back.
Another solution is to screw or bolt the headrest to the back of the seat, either at the top or at the rear of the seat back. This solution suffers from the following limitations. Holes must be drilled by the installer into the seat which permanently pierce the vinyl or cloth covering and can eventually spread to cause tears in the fabric. There exists no standard method of constructing the interior framework of seats, so it is difficult or impossible to design one headrest support plate which can be screwed to the interior frame of any seat. Additionally, such a device must be self supporting to the extent it extends upwardly from the seat, thus requiring the use of expensive rigid materials, such as metals.